I love designing and creating new ideas for quilts. But I’m like you — I have lots of ideas for quilts I’ll never make. Here is a design you are welcome to use. (Don’t sell it — that would be stealing!) I won’t call it a “pattern,” as I won’t include directions or yardage. If you have questions about those, do feel free to ask and I’ll help you however I can.
The design measures 96″ square, and it will fit well on a queen-sized bed (60″ x 80″). Or it will more than cover the top of a king-sized bed (78″ x 80″).
All sizes described below are finished. You probably have favorite ways to create each of the designated blocks, and I encourage you to use whatever method you prefer.
The center block is 21″, finished. When turned on point with no excess, it creates a block that is just shy of 30″ square. If you oversize the setting triangles and trim to 30″ finished, it creates a perfect center. The block is created as a 9-patch. This post describes how to set a block on point.
The unpieced borders are great places to adjust sizing, if you need to trim or add width. Don’t cut the borders until you know what size they really need to be. See this post for more information on adjusting borders.
Border 1 is the green border surrounding the block on point. It is 3″ wide.
Border 2 is hourglasses with 4-patches in the corners. It is 6″ wide. There are 6 hourglasses per side, or 24 hourglasses total. Also there are 4 4-patches.
Border 3 is the teal border with pale green corners. It is 4″ wide.
Border 4 is sawteeth, or half-square triangles. It is 4″ wide. There are 14 HST per side, plus 4 in the corners. The total is 60 HST.
Border 5 is the green border with teal corners. It is 4″ wide.
Border 6 is checkerboard. It is 6″ wide. There are 24 2-patches per side, plus 2 in each corner, for a total of 104 2-patches. Watch the corner arrangement. It changes because of the even number of units.
Border 7 is the final border. It is 6″ wide.
Make this design yours. Feel free to use a different center block or different blocks within borders. Change the colors to suit yourself!
Questions or comments? I’d love to hear what you think.
Wow! Great balance and interest, yet very doable project. I like the colors you’ve chosen, but could see many other variations.
I do like these colors, too. But I’ll admit I have a much harder time in EQ7 with color combinations than I do in real life. So I think I get kind of stuck in a color-rut when drawing. In real life, this might be a good one to do in a much softer set. It could be relatively low contrast for color and value and still work well.
Love it. Do you have an EQ7 file we could download and play with? Not sure I could set it up again, but would play with an existing file…
Thanks! I don’t know anything at all about making files available that way, either on the EQ side or on the WordPress side. It’s something I could look into, but it’s not available at this time.
Very nice! I think I’d like my women’s group to try this in some African prints.
I would be honored if they would. Please keep me updated, and I’d love to see pictures!